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Emergency Management: overdose counts, warming‑center use and record nuisance flooding highlighted
Summary
Office of Emergency Management briefed the committee on overdose trends by ward, warming‑center activations for unhoused residents during winter weather and a record rise in nuisance flooding; officials said overdose reversals and harm‑reduction work remain central while climate-driven flooding poses growing infrastructure and budget risks.
Kevin Simmons, the city's emergency manager, presented a Ward‑by‑ward summary of overdose data and described the city's winter shelter and warming‑center response, as well as new flooding trends the city faces.
Overdose trends: Simmons reported that in Ward 1 the city recorded seven overdoses in 2024 and that "all of them received Narcan," a milestone he said the city had not seen before. Citywide, the Office of Emergency Management reported roughly 80 overdoses in 2024 with fatal overdoses down from the prior year; Simmons and committee members discussed demographic breakdowns (age and race) and uneven fatality rates by ward. Simmons said outreach and harm‑reduction efforts — including Narcan distribution, test strips and a harm‑reduction vending machine in Eastport — are helping lower fatalities and that the city coordinates with the fire department, APD and county partners on opioid intervention.
Funding and coordination: Committee members reviewed how programs have been funded in recent years. Simmons and other staff said the city receives a recurring $35,000 grant from the county health department; opioid‑restitution funds have been used to support the mayor's NAMM program and other interventions. During discussion Alderman Gay cited an opioid restitution fund balance figure referenced during the meeting: $126,195.13 as of a county report dated Dec. 30, 2024; Simmons said staff would follow up with a precise accounting and that the city has used multiple funding sources and grants in recent years.
Warming centers and unhoused services: Simmons described the Stanton Center winter activations and a coordinated daytime bus‑transport arrangement with the Lighthouse shelter that provides shower, laundry and daytime services; he said the city has activated warming centers 63 times since November and recorded more than 1,000 individual patron entries during the season. The office said most patrons are male and most identify as Annapolis residents when they sign in, and staff said they call crisis response when families or minors arrive.
Flooding and long‑term risk: Simmons told the committee that 2024 produced two of the city's top‑10 recorded floods (5.1 feet and 4.4 feet above normal) and that NOAA data show Annapolis has experienced one of the largest increases in nuisance flooding among the locations the agency studied. He said that if no action is taken, the city may face daily record flooding events by 2050 and that by 2055 economic losses could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Committee members referenced the City Dock project as a mitigation measure that will raise portions of downtown and reduce certain exposures.
Ending: Staff said they will follow up with more detailed budgets for opioid‑intervention programs, provide updated overdose and case‑level data when available, and return with additional information on warming‑center costs and flood‑risk economic estimates.
